As someone who has spent many hours researching family history,
it has been especially poignant to see children
disappearing from the household.
Sometimes it transpires that they have died in infancy,
but of course usually they have just
grown up and left home.
The girls are the hardest to find
unless they have unusual names.
We have just completed the 2011 census.
I realised with a pang that our eldest
could not be entered as temporarily absent.
Although he has only just left,
and is often found here overnight,
tonight is not one of them.
So
it's offical.
He's left home.
Luckily we know where he is
and that he is happy.
They don't ask that on the census.
And thank goodness they don't ask such questions!
ReplyDeleteCan you imagine the soul searching and sudden realisations; the possible surge in divorce rates following every census?
Then there all those folk who would take months to return the forms, quite unable to make up their minds if they were really happy or not. Though perhaps a rating of 1 to 10 could be employed, with 10 as maximum happiness?
JofIndia (self-scoring 9.2)
Lump in throat moment.....
ReplyDeleteIt took many years before the first reference was made by the visiting Lovely Son to "going home" - meaning back to his own flat in London. I said nothing, but I noticed it, with a little pang...
So tough to imagine that day from where I sit!! Yet come it will!
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